Publisher’s Weekly reports that Barnes and Noble’s Steve Riggio has personally voiced his support for ending bookstore returnability. It’s one thing when a handful of publishers support it, but quite another when the CEO of the largest book chain is calling for the same. Should this come to pass, the only outwardly visible difference between bookstore and the direct market channels will effectively be reduced to the fact that one carries floppies in depth, the other does not.
This begs the question… if bookstore distributors do switch to a non-returnable system, how may this affect publishers with exclusivity contracts with Diamond? Is non-returnability a crucial component in the definition of what makes a “direct market” store?
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Found via MangaBlog: DramaQueen has pioneered a novel way of letting others know your publishing company is still alive… by sending C&Ds to scanlators.
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Anime News Network writes that objections have been raised over the inclusion of Qur’anic text in the anime Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Egyptian Sheik Abdul Hamid Al-Atrash of the Fatwa Committee of the Al-Azhar University was quoted as saying the scene, in which the villain Dio is shown reading the Qur’an while swearing to kill series protagonist Jojo, “depicts Muslims as terrorists.” Terrified, Japanese publisher Shueisha and animation producer A.P.P.P. have pulled Jojo’s from distribution, and promised that all such imagery will be excised before returning the manga and anime to shelves.
Opinions on the various controversies surrounding the mere inclusion of Islam in popular media aside, it does seem in bad taste to use any kind of religious text in this context, doesn’t it? Then again, I can’t imagine a notable leader from any other religious group would even give a minute of his or her time to such a minor indiscretion, one which would have gone unnoticed by the majority of people had it not been pointed out like this. Except Scientology, maybe…
(Edit: Link removed)
Edit: JapanProbe has more, including Shueisha’s apology letter.
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No matter what he may say here, I know Dwight is secretly one of us. Dwight! Dwight! Dwight! =D
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The ability to return books has, for the past few years anyway (bookstores didn’t pick up on graphic novels right away) meant that if a bookstore buyer wanted to feature a GN on a front-of-store display table, or take on a cardboard merchandiser from a manga publisher or hell, put comics in a rack above the urinal in the men’s room — then they’d take a chance on a title or 5 and order in a stack (or 800 stacks) and set them up on a display. If it sold one or two, then this was considered a success. An expensive success, in a way, but still a new comics customer (trade-paper, bookstore variant) was minted.
If books are non-returnable, then this sort of enterprise-marketing *stops*. No one will bother to other 5-copies-per-store on the off chance a new title will catch the customers’ eye.
Major chains can rely on their warehouses and supply chains to fulfill customer requests; smaller stores have to hope enthusiastic employees and fervent handselling can build up demand and maybe move a few copies. But if the whole industry moves to a non-returnable model for *all* titles, then it will be very hard for just about anyone to find new customers.
I can’t speak to the savings/business end of things, but from a marketing standpoint we’d basically freeze the visibility of titles in the bookstore at wherever it was last year: viral marketing, TV tie-ins, personal appearances by authors/artists — and a lot of luck — not only become a nice add-on to the usual marketing strategy, they become the only way to get a new title into the market.
Just sayin’
Without the ‘distributed risk’ of a returnable title, I don’t think anyone in bookstores will risk trying new titles at all.
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